I came across this somewhat dated (November 2005) article the other day. The VOIP providers have surely caught the attention of the big SBC-AT&T-Verizon crowd. For sure.
BusinessWeek reporter: How concerned are you about Internet upstarts like Google (GOOG ), MSN, Vonage, and others?
Edward Whitacre (SBC, CEO): How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?
The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! (YHOO ) or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!
Just thought any VOIP customers basking in the "cheapness" of their service would like to know what the likes of SBC, excuse me, "AT&T", has planned.
